It's Monday! Everyone has settled in, made new friends, learned approximately ten billion card games, and most of all, everyone is pumped to learn what the theme is!

The theme this week is harnessing energy! We've made lots of windmills, water wheels, cars; but we've never harnessed the energy created by those and used it for something else. So we have a very interesting two weeks ahead of us.

We started the day with a talk from Gever on "what exactly is WORK?" We ended up deciding that work is "effort with a purpose." Of course a dramatic dumping of 1/2" nuts was needed to show how energy is transferred!

Then we split up into teams to explore different types of energy; water, wind, and potential! Here, the wind energy team discusses different types of sails and shafts.

The water team goes on an adventure to the creek. They looked out for water that was deep, flowing, and spacious. They looked out for these conditions because they decided that those would be the optimal conditions for a water wheel.

Madelyn finishes taping up the joints for her potential energy driven car! The team created lots of cars driven by weights and pulleys using our tinkering catalyst kits and tinker toys.

The wind team (pictured here: Onion, Yoel, Michaela) makes prototypes using construction paper and the catalyst kits!

And then test it! Braden hooks up the turbine to a motor to power an LED.

Noodle break! The pool noodles are quickly discovered and quickly turned into a communal game. We wonder how the energy used here could be captured...

After our exploration session, we met up at the top of the hill (with plenty of snacks) and discussed what we discovered and what plans we had going forward. The water group was especially interested in doing a water hammer, and the wind group discussed the different types of shafts, vertical and horizontal.

It's lunch time! The perfect time to explore the nature in the forest next to the build site, and make new friends (with matchy outfits!)

We then split into teams yet again, and started our design process! The water-power team decided to do on-site designing, and ended up with exact measurements and a solid plan.

The potential energy team worked with precision and accuracy on their prototype!

The night ended with eadventuring to the creek, the park, and conversations in the yurts! We had a wonderfully relaxed Monday due to the length of our session, and our high amounts of exploration allowed for a high amount of bonding between our campers. We're so excited for the weeks ahead, and can't wait to see where these kids take us!

Session E - Day 2 - Let's Get Working!